Insurance & Banking view Amazon through wrong end of telescope

"Amidst this never ending string of developments, you could easily get whiplash cranking your head around to see what Amazon is doing next. But Davis says it’s important for financial industry executives to stay calm and understand the company’s perspective on banking. Here’s how Davis sums it up:

Banking is seen as a big market with inefficiencies that Amazon can solve without a bank charter.

Amazon regards existing players’ technology and reputation as weak, and not meeting the demand for customer-centric products.

Amazon isn’t looking to be a bank, not in the typical sense. Instead, Davis says it seeks “synergies to Amazon’s current platform, strategy, and products.”

But Davis says that traditional financial institutions are looking at the problem through the wrong end of the telescope. Amazon is much more about building out its own ecommerce world than it is about just becoming another “friendly neighborhood bank”… in just about every neighborhood on earth.
“Amazon is not building a bank by the traditional definition,” Davis explains. “Amazon is building financial services products to increase participation in the Amazon ecosystem. Amazon is building a bank for Amazon, and that may be even more compelling than launching a traditional deposit-holding bank.”